


prolonged endurance tames the bold

by neon395



Series: there's being alive and there's living. [3]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, PSTD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-18
Updated: 2013-08-18
Packaged: 2017-12-23 21:39:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/931372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neon395/pseuds/neon395
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Liara and Feron attempt at co-existence. But some things are not as easy to heal as broken bones and electricity burns, and a drell may not, will not, can not forget.</p>
            </blockquote>





	prolonged endurance tames the bold

**Author's Note:**

  * For [orchidcactus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/orchidcactus/gifts).



Feron has an annoying habit of screaming in his sleep. 

He knows this, because drell remember, drell always remember everything, and dreams are no different.

However, when Liara looks skeptically at the room he’s chosen to make his own on the impressively large ship which coincidentally happens to be totally out of earshot from the control room, Feron keeps that information to himself.

“I like the decorating,” he says instead, gesturing with an arm that still sporadically spasms at the cot. “It’s a soothing colour.”

It’s grey. All the rooms are grey. His dark eyes meet Liara’s steadily even as he prays silently to Gods that don’t listen.

_Don’t ask me don’t ask me don’t ask-_

“If that is what you want,” she says finally. “Just make sure the coms work.”

He dismantles the cameras in the corners too, and she does not put them back.

——-

The chair stays. It is not worth the effort of dismantling the thing, not when the task would fall squarely on Liara’s shoulders. Feron can’t see it without falling into solipsism, and that gets old very quickly, as does Liara having to slap him out of it. 

“Can’t you just warp it?” he finally asks over a meal, rubbing at his eyes. He has not slept in three days and stims have pushed his heart beat up, rapid as automatic fire. “Or use a singularity?”

“I could blow one of the generators,” Liara says, and she does not look up. “I will ask-”

“It’s fine,” Feron says quickly. “No big deal.”

Under the table, his hands were shaking. 

—-

She catches him crying only once, hunched in one of the hallways, a cell door swinging open beside him. His head is between his knees and the position pulls at muscles and strains bones that are not healed. It doesn’t register. The two meter square room had been his world for two years and Feron grieves for what died in there, for the broken begging thing that came after. His frill is dark, both sets of lids closed tight as his shoulders heave. Feron keens high enough to be inaudible, a developed habit. 

“Are you hurt?” the asari drops beside him quickly. 

Shame clogs Feron’s throat and squeezes his lungs and he wonders, distantly, if this is what Keprals feels like. Still, he shakes his head because Liara’s eyes are wide with worry and concern and he does not deserve it, and must dispel it.

But Liara is smart, sharper then a scalpel and her eyes drift to the open cell. 

She sits beside him, and he covers his eyes with his hands. “Fuck,” he says, to say something, and his voice rasps low. 

“Feron,” she says. “Feron, I’m here.” Her hands are cool as one rests on his bowed neck. It is the first time she’s touched him since the rescue. 

—-

He brings her tea and stares up at the monitors, eye ridges raised. It is still a spectacle. “Thank you, Feron,” Liara says, taking the cup.

He doesn’t let go of it, the ceramic hot under his fingers. “You need to sleep,” he says, and the corner of his mouth twitching up. “You look terrible.” 

Surprise, followed quickly by offense and then chased by humor flickers across blue eyes, and Liara pulls sharply at the cup. He lets go. “I’m working,” she says, and takes a sip. “I will sleep later.”

Later, when Feron finds Liara passed out over her consoles, the tightness around her eyes has eased, and her mouth is less drawn. He looks to remember, before shucking off his coat and drawing it over her shoulders.


End file.
